Bayer stock sold off 4 percent on what German investors clearly think is a bad deal for them. Shares for St. Louis-based Monsanto rose only a fraction, signaling the markets are not taking the bid seriously.

Bayer CEO Werner Baumann is still pitching the deal, though, insisting that creating an even bigger chemical company makes sense as demand for improved seed grows. Opposition to the deal comes from ignorance, Baumann said.

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"What we saw last week was an uneducated reaction in the media and the press because we did not communicate the details of our proposal," Baumann said Monday, according to Bloomberg News. "We are utterly convinced of the rationale" of the proposal.

Anyone who doesn't think that ego was a key part of those deals doesn't recognize human nature. After only a month in the job, there is nothing Baumann would like more than to close the biggest German takeover of an American company in history. He wants to set a record.

The problem with running a giant company is that management teams must cut giant deals to move the needle, but those size deals rarely make sense. Chief executives too often come up with what they think is a novel idea to leave their mark on a company, but too often create a scar.

The most interesting of the all the recent mega-mergers is still a work in progress. The idea of joining Dow Chemical and DuPont in order to spin off three companies is truly novel, and it might actually work because it would create smaller companies, not larger.

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Even then, the odds are that shareholders will not benefit. They rarely do from these kinds of transactions. Management teams, bankers and lawyers are always the big winners, and that's what these mega-mergers are all about.